Not what I was expecting

Today's appointment was surprising to say the least. The ET being cancelled wasn't even the big shocker.

Turns out I've got shitty eggs to go with the shitty sperm. I guess the day 3 quality we've had isn't what they'd expect out of a 29 year old (and I've only been 29 for less than 3 weeks...). I guess in the first cycle the egg issue was masked by our other problem. I'm not really sure what we'll do next. The RE said it isn't absolute - that there are break cycle pregnancies sometimes when a sperm catches a good egg. Unfortunately, with the severe MF that isn't possible. We could try DIUI to see if it is really a severe egg quality issue. We could also try DE with 1/2 DS to see if good eggs could over come the MF issue.

My choice would be to see if there was anything I could do to improve my egg quality and try again (maybe a 3 day transfer would help?). That will be a tough sell to DH because we would be out of pocket this time and the odds would be so low. My next choice would be the DE option, hoping that different eggs would make all the difference - this is even more out there financially.

When I get to the point that I can talk to the RE about some of the questions I have, I'll have to give him a call. I have a ton of them - just couldn't come up with any of them this morning.

Four

That's how many of the 8 eggs fertilized. Five fewer eggs than last cycle - four fewer mature eggs. Four embryos that are being watched until our transfer day. It's also 2 fewer embryos than we had at this point last cycle. 2 fewer chances that we might not be cancelled again.

I've read all the personal stories from ladies who had only 1 or 2 embryos at the time of their fert report and they have 1 or 2 little babies to show for it. I try to tell myself that if it's possible for them, it's possible for us. And then I remember Dr Y taking us to his office in Dec - when we should have been going to change for our transfer. I remember how sad and defeated my husband looked when he told us our embryos had all arrested around day 4.

The fear of that happening again has my heart racing.

When the nurse called with the fert report, I asked if there was any way of knowing if there would be embryos before we got to the clinic. The short answer is 'no'. They check the embryos on day 3, but not communicate with patients. Then they don't check the embryos again until we're in the office for the transfer. So, I guess that means they won't know until we get there, either. Not that it makes me feel any better.

I briefly considered calling on Monday morning to get an update - but do I really want to know? Would that just make me more stressed out to know that I only have one or two embryos that are still chugging along normally? Probably not. That just means I have to wait until Tuesday and keep telling my little foursome to keep growing.

So now that I've calmed down

I've had a chance to step back and relax a tiny bit. The RE called me this morning and said our scheduling issue shouldn't negatively impact our cycle. I'm trying to believe him but I wonder if he's just doing his reassuring thing.

I still don't like DH's Dr. I had forgotten how much he bugs me until we talked to him this morning. I can't put my finger on what it is.... but I don't like him. I hope we never have to talk to him again.

So really, we have Dr with good bedside manner and Dr that must have completely forgotten that his patients and their families have feelings....

Anyway, I trigger tonight and keep my fingers crossed until Thursday. Then I hope and pray harder than I've ever prayed before that we have some embryos left on transfer day and that one or two of them stick around. How the heck am I supposed to function at work for the next week?!?!

I don't handle change well

I was supposed to trigger tonight, DH's procedure tomorrow, ER on Wed. Well righty decided to be lazy - so trigger tomorrow. No big deal, right? Well, the one Dr is being a bit of an asswipe. So his procedure is tomorrow and ER on Thurs most likely. Why this time for scheduling issues?

If we have issues because of this, I'm going to flip a lid. It's not like we can just do this over and over again until it works. At this point, I wonder if it would be better to cancel so we can get everything timed like it's supposed to be. $#@!#@$! This has to work.

One more thing I never imagined doing

Last night DH and I went to see a musical put on by a college nearby. I was really excited to see it because it was a musical I was part of in High School. Plus, we never do anything on Friday night - so yay for us getting out of the house :P

Anyway, this brought up the issue of when to do my injections. I'm supposed to do the injections around the same time each night - I've picked 8:30 because I'm home and I go to bed pretty early. The problem is that the musical didn't start until 7:30 and wouldn't be over until about 10:30.

What else could I do besides pack up the meds and take them with? The original plan had been to pick a bathroom stall during intermission and be covert. That would have been great, but I got kind of creeped out thinking I might drop something on the floor - and I felt bad because there was a big long line.

"Luckily" there was a little chair and a counter that I could use... too bad it was opposite a mirror and everyone in line walked past me. So yes, if you walked past a woman with a syringe and 1.5" needle and a bunch of vials last night, that was me. And in case it was scary, I got to switch the needle out for one that was 0.5". The big shots won't start until later this week.

Oh, and just for the record. All this IF stuff is a freaking pain in the ass and inconvenience. I am sick of missing work and planning my life around Drs appointments and injections. I can't even go for a jog when I want to because I'm supposed to keep my activity to a brisk walk. I can't figure why it seems so much worse this time around.

So much for not getting my hopes up....

I have the same protocol and our chances of this next IVF working aren't great (yea, that's putting it optimistically). I know all this but today found out the clinic is switching my trigger and suddenly I've decided that's the magic change that's going to fix all our problems and make this work.

I don't even know why they are switching me to pregnyl from ovidrel this cycle (any ideas?) ... but for some reason it's increased my expectations. Someone please help me contain the crazy :) I'll be interested to see what the nurse says when I ask about the reason for the change!

I'm on vacation :)

I paid $4 to be able to connect to the wireless internet (the code works for the day, so not too bad)
It looks like it could start raining any second (scratch that. It's starting to sprinkle). And it's getting kind of chilly - guess I'm not going to work on my tan today...
I got blisters on both of my pinky toes yesterday on our walk along the beach (Our first full day here, really? I couldn't possibly trade in my sandals for the shoes I brought!)
I only have fleeting thoughts of work - I think a couple more days will cure me of that!

Color me happy :)

DH is done with his stuff today, so we're going to pack up and check into our "home base" on Kauai for the weekend. There is WAY too much for us to see before we move on to the Big Island. I think we'll have to come back sometime ;)